Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Cadet Webster Smith's Former Attorney, Ronald Machen's Final Act Was A Swawn Song

The Obama Administration’s latest gift to Lois Lerner, the former IRS tax-exempt chief, came recently when U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Ronald Machen informed the House of Representatives that he would not file charges on
its formal contempt citation against Ms. Lerner. This absolution, which
shields Ms. Lerner from a grand jury probe, came onRonald Machen’s final
day on the job. Then he pulled a quick disappearing act.

(Ronald Machen)To review the Facts:Ronald Machen
is no stranger to high profile cases, and he has taken his share to the
U.S. Supreme Court.

(Lois Lerner)
If Americans know anything about the IRS it’s that it accepts no
excuses, and so they trudged wearily on Wednesday, April 15th, to pay their taxes.
That’s in notable contrast to the free passes that keep flowing to the
tax agency’s most famous former employee, Lois Lerner.
Ms. Lerner was summoned to the House
on May 22, 2013, to answer questions about her role in the IRS’s
politically biased review of Tea Party nonprofit group applications for
tax-exempt status.
She began her testimony with a statement
recounting her career, reprising the scandal and proclaiming her
innocence. She ended by saying: “I have not done anything wrong. I have
not broken any laws, I have not violated any IRS rules or regulations,
and I have not provided false information to this or any other
congressional committee.” Only after she offered this long defense did
she claim her right not to incriminate herself by citing the Fifth
Amendment, refusing to answer questions.
House lawyers
determined that, in making that statement, Ms. Lerner had forfeited her
right to remain silent. The House on May 7, 2014 held her in contempt of
Congress and sent the citation to Ronald Machen. The law clearly
explains that the U.S. Attorney’s only “duty” “shall be” to “bring the
matter before the grand jury for its action.” Mr. Machen instead sat on
the contempt citation for 11 months, and on March 31 sent Speaker John Boehner a letter explaining he haunilaterally decided not to investigate Ms. Lerner.
According
to Ronald Machen’s rationale, Ms. Lerner’s statement made only “general
claims of innocence” that did not forfeit her Fifth Amendment rights to
refuse to answer questions. To reach this conclusion, Ronald Machen had to
willfully ignore that Ms. Lerner, in her statement, rebutted specific
accusations against her.
“[M]embers of this committee have
accused me of providing false information when I responded to questions
about the IRS processing of applications for tax exemption,” she said,
before claiming she had never done so. Those accusations had been
detailed to her in a letter from former House Oversight Committee
Chairman Darrel Issa, eight days before she testified. Ronald Machen also had to ignore that Ms. Lerner had prior to her House
appearance voluntarily met for an interview with Justice prosecutors. As
the Heritage Foundation’s Hans von Spakovsky has noted, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in its 1969 Ellis v. U.S.
decision found that “once a witness has voluntarily spoken out, we do
not see how his protected interest is jeopardized by testifying in a
subsequent proceeding, provided he is not required to disclose matters
of substance which are unknown to the Government.”
Since Ms.
Lerner had already disclosed to the “government” (prosecutors), she lost
her privilege to clam up before Congress. And we’d note that after her
House stonewall, she again chose to speak in an interview with the
Politico website. Ms. Lerner wants the right not to answer questions
except when it suits her public-relations purposes.
In any
event, the job of making these legal calls belonged to a grand jury—not Ronald Machen.

(Eric Holder with Ronald Machen)

Then again, this is the prosecutor who in an exit interview
with the National Law Journal about his tenure touted his allegiance to
Attorney General Eric Holder, describing him as a “tremendous mentor and a tremendous friend.”
After Ronald Machen’s performance in shielding Ms. Lerner from the consequences
of her actions, Mr. Holder would no doubt return the compliment. The
handling of the IRS scandal is a blot on both of their careers. (Source: wall Street Journal Opinion, Apr15, 2015)

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